I'm finally getting around to sailing lessons this year and I'd like to follow that up with a boat purchase. While my wife tries to be a good sport about the whole sailing thing, she's clearly reluctant about it. If I'm to do this, I expect I'll be doing it alone much of the time.

I'd like to get a lot of sailing in this first season, and I'm wondering about a couple choices. I live five minutes from Lake Erie and one hour from a nice 14,000 acre inland lake with no Lake Erie chop (if ya know what I mean).

I'm wondering whether to get a relatively smaller boat (19-23") and spend a lot of Saturdays at the inland lake, or get a larger keel boat (25-30") and go for the gusto on Lake Erie. Even with a 25-footer, the chop can really beat you up on Erie.

My reluctance about Lake Erie mainly has to do with handling a boat that size single-handed and with little experience. I'm particularly concerned about docking a boat that size single-handed. I also wonder if I could develop better sailing skills faster on a smaller boat.